


something to get off my chest

by shineyma



Series: something that i can confess [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Confessions, Episode: s02e19 The Dirty Half Dozen, F/M, Minor Jemma Simmons/Antoine Triplett, One Night Stands, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Five times Jemma didn't tell the team she had sex with Ward, and the one time they found out anyway.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons & Antoine Triplett, Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons, Melinda May & Jemma Simmons, Phil Coulson & Jemma Simmons
Series: something that i can confess [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2031541
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	something to get off my chest

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da! Week FORTY EIGHT!!!! If you feel like you missed weeks forty five and six, I haven't been in much of a writing mood lately, so the last two weeks were just tumblr drabbles.
> 
> This week you get a majorly revamped fic that I started, uh, ages ago. Pretty much immediately after posting [i'm not giving up (i'm just giving in)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3897160), which this is a sequelish thing to. (You shouldn't have to read it to understand this, but it might help!) Back then, I got three of the five times and then stalled out. Five years later, I got hit with unexpected inspiration, revamped the first three times, and wrote the other three. This went from 1200 words to 5800 in like, four hours. Everyone give my muse a round of applause because /dang/.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you're all well and that the Americans among you had a very happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3

_one: (to fitz)_

Jemma does honestly mean to keep it a secret. Ward didn’t really _ask_ her to, but there’s truly no point in revisiting it. It was purely for comfort’s sake, there were no emotions involved, and poor Ward might have been trying to cheer her up with his awkward joke about Coulson shooting him, but she’s fairly certain there was honest concern there, as well.

So she fully intends to keep to the offer she made Ward before the two of them went their separate ways last night and avoid mentioning their little rendezvous to anyone.

Unfortunately, she’s never been any good at keeping secrets from Fitz.

She manages to keep it together for most of the morning, but by the time Skye and Ward finish their training, her endurance has run out. They’ve no sooner disappeared up the stairs to the cabin that she sets her notes aside, swivels to face Fitz, and says, bluntly,

“I had sex with Ward.”

Fitz jerks in surprise, causing the projection he’s working with on the holotable to skew oddly. “You _what_?!”

“I had sex wi—”

“I heard you the first time!” he interrupts, voice cracking. “Simmons!”

“Fitz,” she says; not mocking, simply prompting.

“Why,” he says—and it’s certainly not a question. He walks away from the holotable, leaving his model in its new, bizarrely proportioned state, and drops into the nearest chair. “Why would you do that? More importantly, why would you _tell_ me?”

“It didn’t _mean_ anything,” she defends. “It just…happened.”

“Oh, just happened, did it?” he asks. “Spontaneous sex, it just _happened_ , like a bloody autoplaying video—you and Ward walked into a room and—”

“I was upset,” she says. “Over Frank. I came down to the lab to—to think, and Ward was in the cargo bay, and…” She stops herself before she can offer any sordid details and shrugs. “He was very sweet.”

“I can’t hear this,” Fitz says, visibly distraught. “We are never going to speak of this again, Simmons. Not _ever_.”

“All right,” she says, turning back to her work. “We don’t need to. I just wanted you to know, that’s all.”

He subsides into grumbling about it—about oversharing and illogical decisions and _antisocial meatheads_ —but the warm squeeze he gives her shoulder when he passes her on the way to his lab bench tells her that, despite his reaction, he’s glad. Not that she slept with Ward, per se—she imagines he’s genuinely annoyed by that, given his longstanding resentment of operations agents—but that she found comfort.

She and Fitz are too close to what happened to Frank—too emotionally invested. They’ve always been each other’s first source of emotional support, but in this one instance, that just won’t work. They simply can’t prop one another up when they’re equally devastated.

Now Fitz knows she’s sought and found effective comfort elsewhere, and he’ll be able to seek his own.

Presumably his comfort will take a form _other_ than sex with Ward…though one never knows. If that’s his choice, she certainly won’t hold it against him. Those sordid details she managed to hold back are actually quite worth sharing.

(Seven months later, in a storage pod at the bottom of the ocean, Fitz will say, “We really should do a study on your shit taste in men, Simmons. It’s definitely statistically significant at this point.” It will be exactly what she needs to hear, and as she pretends not to notice his tears, he will be kind enough to pretend that hers are only from laughter.)

_two: (to skye)_

None of the Bus’ bunks are in any condition to be slept in, and so once Coulson calls a halt to their clean-up efforts for the day, the team settles into the Hub’s temporary quarters.

Jemma’s heart has yet to slow from the numerous close calls she’s had today, and in all honesty, the absolute last thing she wants is to be left alone—again—in this base. As such, when Skye sheepishly admits to needing company, she hugs her in relief and agrees to share a room.

Despite the very long, incredibly emotional day, they find that neither of them is quite ready to sleep yet. Whether due to leftover adrenaline or fear of what nightmares might await them, they end up sitting cross-legged on the bed, knee to knee, trading secrets with the lights on instead of even attempting slumber.

Exhaustion aside, it’s nice. More than that, it’s _comforting_ —a necessary reminder that life goes on, that not all secrets are bad, and that not _every_ corner has an enemy waiting behind it.

They’re here. They’re alive. Hydra has, somehow, returned and SHIELD has fallen, but their team made it through intact.

So they share secrets.

“When I was eighteen,” Jemma starts—and then hesitates. “This is just between us.”

“Cross my heart,” Skye promises, doing so easily _despite_ the fact they’ve both already sworn multiple times that nothing they share will ever leave this room. “Now ’fess up.”

“When I was eighteen,” she repeats, “Fitz and I were posted at the Sandbox. We hadn’t been out of the Academy very long—barely a year, in fact—but our reputation was already starting to spread.”

“SciTech rockstars,” Skye nods. “I remember.”

“Yes, right,” Jemma says, and doesn’t allow her mind to wander to the circumstances under which Skye found out about their level of acclaim. “Well, one of the older engineers there—older being a relative term, of course, I believe he was only twenty-six or so—had something of a grudge against Fitz. For outshining him, I suppose.”

“Make sense,” Skye says.

“He was an awful berk,” she continues, “and Fitz and I agreed to hate him forever. But, well.” She shrugs helplessly. “He was _very_ attractive.”

“Simmons!” Skye gasps, clapping a hand to her chest in exaggerated shock. “Did you _hook up_ with Fitz’s arch nemesis?”

“I think arch nemesis is a bit dramatic,” she defends, “but…yes. Yes, I did.” She bites her lip. “I felt awful about it, really. I don’t _like_ people who don’t like Fitz. But it was such a stressful time and he was so handsome…and the way he _looked_ at me, Skye!”

“It’s okay,” she says, patting her knee. “We’ve all got hook-ups we regret. How did Fitz take it?”

Jemma grimaces.

“You didn’t _tell_ him?” Skye asks, wide-eyed.

“We agreed to hate him _forever_ ,” she reminds her. “How could I possibly admit it?” Feeling a bit defensive, she nudges Skye’s knee with hers. “I don’t believe you can point fingers in the area of keeping romantic encounters secret from your friends. Does Austin ring a bell?”

She regrets the reminder at once—they’ve never truly discussed Skye’s relationship with Miles Lydon, and she doesn’t know whether the mention will be painful—but Skye, thankfully, doesn’t appear upset.

“Okay, point,” she admits. “And actually, that’s a great segue into _my_ next secret.”

“Oh?”

She rubs her hands against her thighs, suddenly nervous. “This never leaves the room.”

“Cross my heart,” Jemma promises.

“Okay.” Skye takes a deep breath. “Okay. So. Earlier, while we were infiltrating the Hub and still thinking we were all gonna die…” She takes another breath. “You can’t tell _anyone_.”

“I won’t,” she says, beginning to get honestly concerned. “Skye, what is it?”

“I kissed Ward,” Skye says, very quietly and very quickly.

Jemma’s mind stutters to a halt. “You _what_?”

“I kissed Ward,” Skye repeats, a little louder, then groans as Jemma gapes. “I know, I know, it was a _terrible_ idea! He’s my SO and we’re teammates and SHIELD _literally_ just collapsed, this is the _worst_ time to start something, but…”

“But?” she prompts, somewhat uncomfortably.

Skye smiles—bright, happy, and a touch silly. “It was a _really_ great kiss.”

“Oh. Hmm.” Jemma clears her throat. “In that case, there’s probably something I should tell you.”

“Something to do with me kissing Ward?” Skye jokes.

“Actually, yes,” she says, and hurries on before she can lose her nerve, “I had sex with him.”

“…What?”

Skye couldn’t possibly look more betrayed if Jemma had said ‘Hail Hydra’ instead. Something twists in her chest, hot and shamed.

“Not recently!” she assures her at once. “It was months ago, long before there was any indication—of course I would _never_ —if I’d known—”

“Whoa, okay,” Skye interrupts. “Simmons, calm down.” She blows out a breath. “It was months ago?”

“Months and months,” Jemma confirms. “October, in fact. Our team had barely begun. And it wasn’t—it was merely for comfort, after what happened to Dr. Hall. There was no emotion involved and we haven’t spoken of it since. He’s never looked at me the way he looks at you.”

“…Are you sure?” Skye asks, voice small and uncertain.

“Absolutely positive,” she says, taking Skye’s hands to squeeze them in emphasis and comfort both. “It was nothing, Skye, truly. I just…I wanted you to know. If you’re going to start something with Ward, I didn’t want that as a secret between you or us.”

“So you don’t…want him?” Skye asks hesitantly.

“He’s all yours,” Jemma says, and swiftly moves on, “And as for the timing of it…I would actually say this is the best time, wouldn’t you? SHIELD is gone, Skye. There are no more protocols or policies to hold you back. If you want him, you should go for it.”

“You think so?”

“I do.”

Skye grins, uncertainty washing away. “Okay. Cool.”

She’s so changeable, Skye—so quick to adapt to new circumstances, so comfortable moving with the flow. Jemma envies her a bit.

For her own part, she can’t move on nearly as easily.

“So,” she says, “are we all right?”

“Yeah, we’re fine.” Skye glares playfully. “Just don’t do it again!”

“I won’t,” she says, crossing her heart for emphasis. “I promise.”

“Good,” Skye says, and then hesitates. “So. How was he?”

Jemma laughs.

(A week or so later, they will be in the same position on a different bed. There will be no secrets and no laughter and no talk whatsoever of Grant Ward—only tears.)

_three: (to trip)_

Jemma is well aware that Trip has been flirting with her since the moment they met. It’s harmless—friendly—and she’s enjoyed it. Why shouldn’t she? Trip is kind and funny and extremely attractive; _anyone_ would be happy to receive the attention of such a fine specimen of the male gender.

Recent events, however, have somewhat dulled her ability to enjoy it.

She supposes she should have expected a specialist of his caliber to notice as much.

The others have long since excused themselves for bed, but Jemma finds herself lingering by the pool, resting her feet in the water and trying not to think. As Trip was one of the first to head in, she’s quite startled when he drops down next to her.

“So, I’m starting to get the feeling I freaked you out,” he says without preamble. “Which was the absolute last thing I wanted to do.”

“Oh, no,” she says at once, horrified. “No, you’ve been lovely, it’s—you haven’t upset me at all.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. “Because before, you seemed kind of receptive to the flirting, but now…” He gives her a serious, earnest look, and her heart twists a little from the unfairness of it all. “If you want me to back off, all you gotta do is say the word. I never wanna make you uncomfortable.”

“You aren’t,” she promises. “Not at all! It’s not you, it’s…”

She trails off as she realizes belatedly how that sounds, and Trip laughs a little.

“It’s not you, it’s me?” he asks, gently teasing. “Now why do I feel like I just got dumped?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, laughing helplessly, and presses her hands to her eyes for a moment. When she lets them drop, Trip is watching her with a smile that does nothing to hide his concern. “That’s not what I meant. But I promise, it really is nothing to do with you.”

“Okay,” he says. “Glad to hear it.” He hesitates for a moment, studying her. “But—if you don’t mind me asking—if it’s not me, what is it?”

Uncertainly, she looks away from his earnest worry. The sight of the water rippling around her ankles is much easier to bear.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says as the silence draws out. “I just thought you might like someone to talk to.”

“Actually, I would,” she decides all at once. Her secret has been weighing her down like a stone around her neck—or, more accurately, like a boulder in her throat: something she must speak past, something that makes every word an effort.

It will be easier to share with Trip, she thinks, than with any of the others. He’s been betrayed, too, but not the way they have. It’s less personal with him, less _present_. He’s part of their team now, but he wasn’t always. He hasn’t lived among them, wasn’t involved in the way they built their team—family—piece by piece, slowly, over the course of months.

Ward doesn’t mean to Trip what he means to the others.

Still, it takes her a moment to find the words. Trip, bless him, waits patiently.

In the end, she simply blurts it out. “I had sex with Ward.”

She doesn’t know what she’s expecting—for him to recoil? To be horrified? To promptly retract every instance of flirting and slap a scarlet letter on her jumper for good measure?

As it is, all he does is reach over and still her fingers, which she’s been drumming absently against the ground between them. Looking down at his hand covering hers, she has the absurd urge to cry.

“It was—it was in October,” she says, in the hopes that speaking will keep the tears away. “An old teacher of mine—” no, what is she thinking, talking of Frank will only bring on _more_ tears—“well, I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I was grieving and he was an excellent distraction.” She presses her lips together, struggling. “It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t _want_ it to mean anything. I don’t know why I’m being so silly about this.”

“You’re not being silly,” Trip says lowly. “Ward played your whole team. There’s no wrong way to react to that.”

“He kidnapped Skye,” she says, to herself as much as him. “He _murdered_ Agent Koenig! It’s ridiculous that I’m getting choked up over perfectly consensual sex.”

“No,” he says, hand pressing more firmly against hers, “it’s not. Grief isn’t a contest—all of you were hurt. The only ‘ridiculous’ thing is trying to assign rankings to how bad you each had it.”

She looks at him—at his sweet, earnest expression—and suddenly has the urge to cry for an entirely different reason.

“Us,” she corrects, and her voice breaks on it.

“What?”

“All of _us_ were hurt,” she clarifies, and turns her hand over to tangle her fingers with his. “You were betrayed, too—and not just by Ward. I’m sorry.”

Just for a heartbeat, his expression is overtaken by the soft, fond look he’s been aiming her way from almost the moment they met. Then it disappears—tucked carefully away, she thinks, in light of her discomfort.

He’s such a lovely man. Why couldn’t he have been their team specialist from the beginning?

“All of us were hurt,” he agrees with a gentle squeeze of her hand. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

She feels that she does, though. He might not have been betrayed by Ward in the same way they were, but he _was_ betrayed by Garrett—his own supervising officer, who got his partner killed. They’ve all rather forgotten it, she thinks, wrapped up in their own grief as they are.

It’s horribly selfish of them.

“Do _you_ need to talk?” she offers.

He squeezes her hand again. “Actually, I’d really just prefer to sit here and enjoy the night air with the prettiest girl in Los Angeles.” He gives her a sideways smile. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Yes.” She smiles, heart unaccountably light. “That sounds lovely.”

_four: (to may)_

Jemma is going to go undercover at Hydra. _Jemma_ is going to go _undercover_. At _Hydra_.

No matter how many times she says it to herself, it never starts sounding like less of a bad idea.

She’s going to do it anyway, of course. She just wishes the words would stop making her want to laugh.

There’s nothing for it. Coulson needs someone undercover in Hydra’s science division, and she’s really the only option. Fitz is right out, for obvious reasons, and while their own fledgling science division has several very intelligent and competent agents, Coulson doesn’t _trust_ any of them the way he trusts her.

Beyond which, she needs out of the Playground. She doesn’t know how much longer she can stand it.

She does, however, know how much longer she _must_ stand it: two weeks.

She’s been having lessons with May, practicing lying. Or rather, practicing taking advantage of her complete inability to lie. She doesn’t need to outright lie to Hydra, she just needs them to…make some incorrect assumptions. They’ve another two weeks of lessons scheduled; after that, she’s off to join the evil organization that destroyed her life and those of almost everyone she loves.

It’s a cheery thought.

And speaking of cheery thoughts…

“I had sex with Ward.”

The words slip out of her, unbidden, and she winces. May, who’s been pacing behind her in order to intimidate her (keeping her cool under pressure is another thing they’re practicing), stops in her tracks.

Jemma stares down at her hands, stomach twisting into knots. She didn’t mean to say the words (which is terrible on a number of levels; imagine if the words _I’m a SHIELD agent_ just slip out of her like that at Hydra?), but now they’ve been spoken, the urge to confess the whole truth is overwhelming.

This secret has been hanging over her head for months, the proverbial Sword of Damocles, and who better to understand than May? She slept with him too, after all; she’s perhaps the only person on the team who won’t judge her for it—who can understand the horrible combination of shame and hate she’s been living with.

So even though she didn’t mean to say it, she doesn’t attempt to take it back.

“That wasn’t a lie,” she adds with an uncomfortable laugh. “Though I wish it were.”

After a moment, May takes the seat next to her. “Was it consensual?”

Her tone is even and unremarkable. She could be asking what Jemma wants for dinner.

Jemma’s grateful. It makes it so much easier to admit, “Yes.”

May nods and waits.

“I was—upset,” she continues. “I needed comfort, and he was there and—and shirtless—”

To her mortification, the sharp breath she takes is audibly uneven. Tears sting at her eyes.

“Simmons,” May says, gripping her shoulder. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she nearly _sobs_ , and May’s grip tightens.

“It _is_ ,” she says firmly. “It’s not your fault.” She hesitates for a moment, then goes on, “Ward is a master manipulator. SHIELD—and Hydra— _trained_ him to be a master manipulator. He wanted your trust, and he knew sex was a surefire way to get it.” Her voice firm, she concludes, “It had nothing to do with you.”

Perhaps in other circumstances, that would be insulting. Likely it should be, even in these circumstances.

Instead, Jemma is bizarrely comforted. Ward _is_ a master manipulator—they’ve all had occasion to see that in the last few weeks. Pairing the reminder with the fact of their sexual encounter, it occurs to her that everything that happened that night—his hesitance, his uncertainty—were deliberate choices he made. That was his cover touching her so gently, a lie of a man double and triple checking that she really wanted him.

He was playing her. He was playing her because she was there, and because he could.

It’s not a personal failing, as much as it feels like one. It’s just one more in a long line of Ward’s betrayals.

That shouldn’t comfort her, but it does. It doesn’t entirely absolve her of her guilt, but it’s enough. Enough she can brush her tears away and give May a (hopefully) convincing smile.

“Thank you,” she says, and May—lovely, wonderful, kind woman that she is—nods and returns to their lesson without another word.

_five: to coulson_

“Sir?” Jemma asks, tapping on the Director’s office door. “Do you have a moment?”

The smile Coulson gives her edges on exhausted. “A moment’s about all I’ve got, so if it won’t take too long…?”

“Unfortunately, it might.” Having absolutely no desire to share this particular information with the false SHIELD (still hanging about like the proverbial bad smell, to her disgust), she steps into the office and closes the door firmly behind her. “There’s something you should know.”

“Oh?” No longer smiling, Coulson sets the file he was examining aside. “I’m all ears.”

Rather wishing he’d sent her away, Jemma steps up behind one of the visitor’s chairs and grips the back of it, hoping to steady herself.

“Ward threatened—or, not truly _threatened_ so much as _implied_ , actually—or—that is to say…” She stops and takes a deep breath, because dancing around the subject helps no one. Better to be quick about it, like a band-aid. “Ward and I had sex.”

Coulson’s face goes blank. “What.”

“Not recently,” she hastens to assure him. “Actually, it was some time ago. I know I should have brought it up sooner, but after everything that happened—well, it’s not as though anyone needed anything _more_ to be angry at him over, so I—”

“Jemma,” he interrupts, voice unusually soft and jaw tight with some leashed emotion. “Are you saying that Ward…” He hesitates, and she notes that his hands are clenched into fists on his desk. “…assaulted you?”

Ah. That would be the emotion he’s holding back, then: pure, unadulterated fury.

“No!” she exclaims. _Look_ what your stammering did, Jemma. “No, sir, that—it wasn’t.” She takes a moment to fight for calm, lest she cause any more confusion with a disjointed account. “It was completely consensual, I promise. Or, well, as consensual as it could be, considering the fact that, had I known anything of his true character, I would have sooner shoved him out the airlock than actually—”

She stops again. Recenters herself. Tries to be calm.

“It was more than a year ago,” she concludes, a bit lamely. “Before he betrayed us. I was upset and he—he comforted me. That’s all.”

Coulson searches her face carefully. “Are you sure? He didn’t hurt you?”

“Not at all,” she promises.

“Good.” He sits back in his seat and scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Good. I’m very relieved to hear that.”

“I’m sorry,” she says miserably. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’d rather be alarmed for no reason than…well, for a reason.” He clears his throat and laces his fingers on his desk, pinning her with a concerned look. “You said he threatened you.”

“He did,” she confirms. “Just now. He—well, he implied that if I didn’t accompany the team on the mission, he would tell all of you what happened between us.”

“Huh.” Coulson mulls that over for a moment, brow furrowed. “He wants you on the op?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well,” he muses. “That’s a little ominous.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “I rather thought so.”

Coulson sighs. “Did he say _why_ he wants you to come?”

“Apparently, he’s noticed that there’s some tension among the team,” she says. “He claims that it hurts him to see us this way, and thinks we all—including him—need some _quality time_ together to fix it.”

Coulson looks just as skeptical as she feels about Ward’s purported reasoning. “Uh huh.”

“Whatever his reasons,” she says, “I’m not inclined to give him what he wants. But…he wasn’t wrong that dropping that particular bombshell could seriously distract the team. I thought, perhaps you knowing ahead of time…”

“I’ll be able to bring the others back under control?” he guesses.

“Hopefully,” she agrees.

The look he gives her is knowing, but kind. “And you don’t have to be there to see their reactions.”

She can’t deny it. “That, too.”

“Okay.” He sits back in his chair, then nods. “It’s a good plan. You stay here and keep an eye on Agent 33 for us, I’ll handle the fallout.”

His easy agreement—and the excuse to let him bear the brunt of the others’ reactions—lifts a weight off her shoulders.

“Thank you, sir,” she says, releasing her bloodless grip on the visitor’s chair. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Just one thing first,” he says before she can step towards the door.

As she waits, he pushes away from his desk, stands, and comes around to take her by the shoulders.

“Sir?” she asks uncertainly.

“Jemma,” he says, “you have _nothing_ to be ashamed of.”

Her breath catches. “Sir—”

“You said it yourself,” he interrupts firmly. “If you’d known who he really was, it wouldn’t have happened. That’s on him for lying. Not you. Understood?”

It’s not as simple as that, of course—but even so, Coulson’s stern look and firm assurance are comforting. In the face of it all, she’s able to actually, genuinely smile at him, despite the ache in her chest.

“Understood,” she says softly.

“Good.” He squeezes her shoulders briefly, then lets go. “Now get back to work, Agent Simmons. I’m not paying you to stand around talking.”

It’s so unlike him to say, it startles a laugh out of her—which she imagines was his intention. He certainly looks pleased enough.

“Yes, sir,” she says, and excuses herself.

Still smiling, she returns to the lab. As awful as facing the rest of the team once they know will likely be, she can’t deny her pleasure at the knowledge she’s thwarting Ward. Coulson’s kindness and understanding are just the icing on the cake.

_plus one:_

If asked, Jemma couldn’t begin to explain how she got from struggling with Ward to snogging him. She can’t track the progression at all: one minute she was aiming a splinter bomb at his throat, and the next, she had him backed up against the gurney, her hands in his hair and his well on their way to getting past her tactical vest.

Equally inexplicable is how easily they move against one another, the comfortable rhythm they fall into at once—as though their one-night stand was instead an extended affair, as though they spent _weeks_ learning one another’s bodies rather than a handful of hours.

Admittedly, not much of her considerable genius is turned towards puzzling out either mystery. She’s almost entirely distracted by the warmth of Ward’s body, his mouth firm against hers, his clever fingers tracing up-up-up her torso—

Just as things are getting interesting, Jemma’s brought solidly back to Earth with the sudden _thunk_ of something falling and a sputtered, “What the _fuck_ —”

Oh no.

Oh _no_.

She forgot about Skye.

Her attempt to jerk away from Ward is stymied by the way his hands are trapped against her middle by her still mostly-tight tactical vest. Perhaps Skye misreads her aborted movement, or perhaps she’s only making the most immediately obvious assumption—either way, shock has been replaced by fury when she says, “You have _two seconds_ to let her go before I _quake your fucking face in_.”

For a moment, Jemma thinks nothing could be worse than this—than being caught mid-snog with their team’s mortal enemy (and by the object of said mortal enemy’s disturbing obsession, at that). Then Ward pulls back—only far enough to look at her; despite Skye’s threat, the way he’s lowered himself to sit on the edge of the gurney, with her between his knees, means she’s positioned as a very effective human shield—and when she meets his eyes, she realizes she doesn’t have it in her to see him killed for an act they’re equally guilty in.

The only thing worse than being caught mid-snog with their team’s mortal enemy, as it happens, is having to admit that she was a willing participant.

Bugger.

“Don’t,” she says, and turns in Ward’s arms to face Skye. (His hands slip smoothly out from under the vest this time, but he obviously means to keep her as protection for as long as necessary; she’s not able to pull away.) “He wasn’t assaulting me, Skye, I was…”

Her voice rather fails her, but the beginning she’s offered is obviously clear enough. Skye’s fury drops right into disgusted confusion.

“ _What_ ,” she says.

“Don’t blame Jemma,” Ward says, irritatingly cheerfully. (Also irritating: he easily avoids the elbow she aims at him for his presumptuous use of her first name.) “We just fell into old habits for a minute, that’s all.”

_Bastard_. To her satisfaction, he’s not quite as adept in avoiding her stomp to his foot.

“ _Ow_ ,” he mutters at her.

“Serves you right,” she hisses back as she tries—unsuccessfully—to pull away from him.

“Old habits?” Skye echoes incredulously.

“Jemma never told you?” Ward asks with obviously feigned hurt. “Man, and I thought you two were best friends. We—”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” she snaps. She means to spin to face him—the better to punch the faux-hurt off of his face—but once again, he holds her easily in place.

“We were sleeping together on the Bus,” he says, cheerfully, even as she stomps on his foot again.

Skye’s arm—held threateningly aloft all this time, presumably in anticipation of using her powers on Ward—falls limply to her side. Jemma’s heart falls along with it.

“Once!” she clarifies immediately. “It happened _once_ and it was a _horrible mistake_ —”

“Uh, rude,” he says. “That was the best night of your life and you know it.”

Jemma could bring up that he himself claimed it was a poor performance mere hours ago, but she’s rather more concerned with the unreadable look on Skye’s face. This—this revelation, this moment of irreversible truth, is _precisely_ what she didn’t want. The _only bloody reason_ she came on this mission was to keep their night together from becoming public knowledge.

That in mind and having no way to explain herself anyway, she stomps on his foot for a third time rather than attempting to defend herself to Skye.

“Stop that,” Ward chides.

“Let me go,” she snaps back. Once more, she attempts and fails to face him, but she doesn’t need to be looking at him to know the smug look that’s on his face—she can literally _hear_ it in his voice when he says,

“That’s not what you were saying five minutes ago.”

Jemma’s so furious she actually goes for the gun on her hip—a move that seems to spur Skye into action, as well. Her scramble and Skye’s steps forward are both halted, however, by the sudden press of a barrel to her jaw.

Skye’s arm comes back up at once. “Let her go.”

“You see what you’ve done?” Ward asks Jemma, even as he pulls her back against him. “Skye’s got the wrong idea.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Jemma says through gritted teeth. She’s never wanted to shoot someone so badly in her _life_. (It doesn’t help her temper at all that a tiny, negligible part of her has rather more carnal ideas of what to do to him.) “Just because you _tricked me_ into sleeping with you _a year ago_ does not mean—”

“Does not mean you weren’t just very happily kissing me back before Skye rudely interrupted,” he rudely interrupts.

His continuing arrogant cheer is so infuriating, Jemma ignores all common sense (and the cold metal biting into her skin) to stomp on his foot yet again. The rumble of his resulting chuckle is even _more_ irritating.

“Stop _laughing_ ,” she snaps. “You should be just as ashamed as I am! You have a _girlfriend_ , you berk!”

Ward hums thoughtfully.

“I do,” he admits. “Buuuut, it’s not cheating if it ends in a threesome.”

Jemma and Skye scoff in unison.

“God, you’re a creep,” Skye says, and turns a considering look on Jemma. “We’re getting you checked for brainwashing when we get back to the Playground.”

…That might actually explain the transition from attempted murder to snogging, now that Skye mentions it. “Please.”

“Rude,” Ward says. “Also, a threesome with me and Kara would be damn hot and you know it.”

Jemma jerks against his hold and is rewarded with more pressure against her jaw.

“The second before you let me go,” she hisses, wishing she could spit the words in his face, “will be the last time you _ever_ touch me, you bastard.”

He huffs a laugh. “Doesn’t give me much incentive to let you go, now, does it?”

“If you need incentive,” Skye says, hand flexing, “I’m happy to provide it.”

She’s eyeing the gun, and Jemma remembers that she accidentally destroyed one while struggling with her emerging powers. She must be considering whether she can quake this one apart before Ward can fire it.

Personally, Jemma is willing to risk it—but Skye hesitates too long.

“No need for that,” Ward says. The gun presses harder against her skin as his other arm leaves her, warning her against turning to either attack him or see what he’s doing. “I can tell when I’ve worn out my welcome. But hey, sweetheart.” His fingers hook in the back of her vest as he leans forward to murmur in her ear, “When you’re ready for that threesome, Kara’ll know where to find me.”

His lips brush the shell of her ear as he speaks, and that awful, inexplicable, likely brainwashed part of her that’s still attracted to him—that drove her to kiss him back and shudders at his every touch—nearly whimpers.

In conjunction with the admittedly appealing picture Ward paints, it distracts and stills her. Not for _long_ , but long enough that she doesn’t react in time when the gun falls away from her jaw. A different barrel rests against the back of her neck, and she hasn’t even opened her mouth to tell him where he can shove his threesome invitation before her world lights up in dendrotoxin blue.

.

.

.

Hours later, she wakes on a quinjet with her team, two rescued prisoners, and a lot of explanations to give.

Ward, the bastard, is long gone.


End file.
